{"id":415,"date":"2018-03-06T15:45:50","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T15:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/2018\/03\/06\/ranker-how-to-make-a-google-algorithm-proof-website\/"},"modified":"2019-10-31T16:08:07","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T16:08:07","slug":"ranker-how-to-make-a-google-algorithm-proof-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2018\/03\/06\/ranker-how-to-make-a-google-algorithm-proof-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranker: How to make a Google algorithm-proof website"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any SEO or webmaster who has ever had a website affected by a Google<\/a> algorithm change \u2013 or feared being affected by one \u2013 has probably wished that they could find a way to make their website \u201calgorithm-proof\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Still, surely there\u2019s no such thing as a website that\u2019s never impacted by Google<\/a> algorithms, right? As long as your site is indexed by Google<\/a>, it\u2019s at the mercy of the algorithms that Google<\/a> uses to determine website ranking, all the more so if you happen to rely heavily on organic search traffic for your business.<\/p>\n

The art \u2013 or science \u2013 of search engine optimization<\/a> is about determining as best you can what those algorithms are looking for, and giving it to them.<\/p>\n

Yet one website believes it has found the formula for making its content \u201cGoogle algorithm<\/a>-proof\u201d. Ranker<\/a> is a website made up of dynamic, crowdsourced lists that users<\/a> can vote on, about everything from pop culture to geography, history to sports, celebrities to science.<\/p>\n

And according to its CEO, Clark Benson, Ranker has never suffered a negative effect from a Google algorithm change<\/a>, growing its traffic steadily without interruption over the course of eight and a half years.<\/p>\n

Search Engine<\/a> Watch caught up with Benson to find out Ranker\u2019s secret to success, and whether there is a formula for creating an algorithm-proof website.<\/p>\n

Rankings, not review sites<\/strong><\/h2>\n

So what is Ranker, exactly?<\/p>\n

\u201cRanker\u2019s primary reason for being is to crowdsource anything that makes sense to rank,\u201d says Benson. \u201cAny topic that people are really interested in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe unique angle that we\u2019ve pursued is that instead of having this being one 23-year-old blogger\u2019s opinion of the best new TV shows of the year, or whatever it happens to be, we would have a dynamic list that visitors could vote on, potentially add items to, and re-rank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe end result is a very wisdom-of-crowds-based answer which is always changing and dynamically moving along as tastes change, and as more people vote on things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Voting on a list of ‘Historical events you most want to go back and see’ on Ranker<\/em><\/p>\n

Lists have been a time-honored draw for magazines and other print media over the years, but it was when the internet came along that they really exploded \u2013 spawning dozens of list-oriented viral websites and the much-mocked<\/a> listicle<\/a>, which became a staple of online journalism. However, Benson \u2013 a self-described \u201clifelong list nerd\u201d \u2013 was frustrated by the fact that these lists only ever represented one person\u2019s opinion.<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, he found review websites unhelpful, as user-generated reviews<\/a> represented a single person\u2019s subjective opinion in a format that wasn\u2019t conducive to making a decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the reason to build Ranker was my frustration with review sites, because when I\u2019m looking for an answer to something, like which TV show to watch, I don\u2019t want to read a lot of text reviews<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also feel that in typical five-star rating systems, everything tends to be clustered around three and a half to four stars, so you don\u2019t get any true granularity on what is best.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a world increasingly \u201ccluttered with choices\u201d, therefore, Benson was convinced that rankings were \u201cthe simplest way to dissect a choice in a category, without losing the credibility of the answer\u201d. And so he built Ranker as a website where the wisdom of the crowd could determine the ultimate ranking for any list of items, on any topic.<\/p>\n

The secret to Ranker\u2019s SEO success: <\/strong>Content freshness<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

Since Ranker\u2019s launch in 2009, the site has amassed more than 100,000 rankings across dozens of broad categories, encompassing almost any topic that people could have a passion for.<\/p>\n

When the website first launched, however, it had very few resources, and Benson explains that he had to learn SEO from scratch in order to give the website a strong foundation.<\/p>\n

Luckily, earning traffic was never a problem for the site, because the type of content published on Ranker was uniquely suited to catering to Google\u2019s<\/a> algorithms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never been hit by any algorithm changes \u2013 we\u2019ve always grown our organic search traffic year over year over year, steadily, for the eight and a half years we\u2019ve been live.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never exactly know what works in SEO, because Google<\/a> doesn\u2019t tell<\/em> you what works, but I\u2019ve always believed that the best intelligence on what to do comes from the public statements Google<\/a> makes \u2013 their best practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd one of the key factors that Google<\/a> says is in their index is freshness of content. Content has a lifespan. In our case, because our rankings are dynamic and always changing \u2013 people are adding things to them, voting things up and down \u2013 this makes for perpetually fresh content.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of content that is six, seven, even eight years old that is still doing as well as it was years ago, and in some cases it\u2019s even growing in traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of Ranker\u2019s most evergreen pieces of content is a list ranking the \u2018Best Movies of All Time\u2019 \u2013 which is more than 5,000 items long.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously that\u2019s a topic that there\u2019s a lot of passion and a lot of competition for [in search rankings]. And in the last few years, we\u2019ve been on the top three or so results on Google for that term.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve watched that page just grow in rankings over the span of seven or eight years. I can only guess it\u2019s because the page is always changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

User-curated content<\/strong><\/h2>\n

At the time of writing this article, Ranker\u2019s front page is currently spotlighting a list of best-dressed celebs at the 2018 Oscars<\/a>, a best TV episode names<\/a> ranking, and a list of possible game-changing deep space observations<\/a> to be made by the Webb Telescope.<\/p>\n

Anyone can add an item to a list on Ranker, although Ranker\u2019s content is not purely user-generated. Ranker has an editorial team which is made up of people who, in Benson\u2019s words, \u201chave a mind for cataloging things\u201d rather than people who specialize in writing a lot of prose.<\/p>\n

Lists are typically started off by one of Ranker\u2019s editors, and when a user wants to add a new item to a list, it\u2019s cross-referenced with Ranker\u2019s database, a huge data set made up of more than 28 million people, places and things. If the item isn\u2019t found in the database, it\u2019s added to a moderation queue.<\/p>\n

Rather than UGC (user-generated content), therefore, Benson thinks of Ranker\u2019s lists as something he terms UCC \u2013 user-curated content<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How did Ranker build such a huge data set? Beginning in 2007, a company called Metaweb ran an open source, collaborative knowledge base called Freebase, which contained data harvested from sources such as Wikipedia, the Notable Names Database, Fashion Model Directory and MusicBrainz, along with user-submitted wiki contributions.<\/p>\n

This knowledge base made up a large part of Ranker\u2019s data set. What\u2019s interesting is that Freebase was later acquired by none other than Google \u2013 and is the foundation of Google\u2019s Knowledge Graph.<\/p>\n

Additionally, not every list on Ranker is crowdsourced or voted on. Some lists, such as Everyone Who Has Been Fired Or Resigned From The Trump Administration So Far<\/a>, don\u2019t make sense to have users voting on them, but are kept fresh with the addition of new items whenever the topic is in the news.<\/p>\n

Can other websites do \u2018Ranker SEO\u2019?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Benson acknowledges that Ranker\u2019s setup is fairly unique, and so it isn\u2019t necessarily possible to emulate its success with SEO by trying to do the same thing \u2013 unless you just happen to have your own crowdsourced, user-curated list website, of course.<\/p>\n

With that said, there are still some practical lessons that website owners, particularly publishers, can take away from Ranker\u2019s success and apply to their own SEO strategy.<\/p>\n

First and foremost: content freshness is king<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As you\u2019ve no doubt gathered by now, the freshness of Ranker\u2019s content is probably the biggest contributing factor to its success in search. \u201cWe\u2019re convinced that the dynamism of our content is what really lets it just grow and grow and grow in search traffic,\u201d says Benson.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile our approach is somewhat unique to the way Ranker works \u2013 we have a bespoke CMS that makes lists out of datasets \u2013 I\u2019m positive that there are other ways to apply this kind of thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

To put content freshness front and center of your content marketing efforts, make sure that your publication or blog is well-stocked with evergreen content<\/a>. For those articles or posts that are more time-sensitive, you can still publish a refreshed version, or look for an up-to-date spin to put on the old content, for example linking it in with current events.<\/p>\n

According to research by Moz<\/a>, other factors which can contribute to a positive \u201cfreshness\u201d score for your website as a whole include:<\/p>\n